Candy (Slippery Rock)Hi James, who do you think the second and third leading receivers will be for the Dolphins after Mike Wallace?

ESPN's James WalkerA player who has really looked good in OTAs and minicamp is Brian Hartline, Candy. He may even be better than last year from what I've seen. I think Hartline will have another good season. As far as No. 3, probably Dustin Keller. Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill needs a security blanket and I think Keller will get a good share of opportunities if he stays healthy.

This is so frustrating. They are running around in shorts. Its pointless to make that comment right now.

I wouldn't let it frustrate you, its just a media report. Life is too short to let things like this get to you...

Heck, I may as well shut the forum down after the Super Bowl game and reopen it up during training camp when the pads come on.

I think most of the fans here understand that the pads are not on. What they also understand is that the good reports coming out of camp are from people who saw these same players perform last year when the pads were not on. They are seeing improvement.

I agree with you Dave. For me, I enjoying reading "something" about our fins in the off season as this is the most boring time of the year for me. It is pretty obvious that this is the off season and a lot of preparations going on in practices leading up to the padded sessions.

The post that got me was the one about him being "all business" this off season, expecting to read how he turned 10 lb of fat to muscle, improved his speed, something like that. Only to be duped into reading about his convenient store chain...

Heck, I may as well shut the forum down after the Super Bowl game and reopen it up during training camp when the pads come on.

I think most of the fans here understand that the pads are not on. What they also understand is that the good reports coming out of camp are from people who saw these same players perform last year when the pads were not on. They are seeing improvement.

Let's just go with some cautious optimism here.

I don't feel the same about Hartline as D4Me does ..... however, even if someone improves in shorts compared to the same time last year, it doesn't really say much to me in terms of how optimistic I should be for the season. When the pads are on and the game is live, it's a whole different animal out there.

James Walker isn't the kind of guy actually spending copious amounts of time at these camps either, he regurgitates a lot second hand information. So as I've previously stated, some of these articles I completely ignore (especially the shortwinded ones) and the others I read and go "ok" .... not really buying or selling. I got tired of the sensationalistic propping up of players (especially the camp Rudy) long ago.

The post that got me was the one about him being "all business" this off season, expecting to read how he turned 10 lb of fat to muscle, improved his speed, something like that. Only to be duped into reading about his convenient store chain...

Touche you sneaky blogger

Hahahaha I just blew ice tea through my nose. You are so right about all this fluff being reported right now.

I do think Hartline will have a big year because Miami has added Wallace, Gibson & Keller. Its going to be hard for defenses to shut all Miami's offensive weapons down. Hartline will see a lot of one on one coverage this year and that should help him put up solid numbers.

I agree with you Dave. For me, I enjoying reading "something" about our fins in the off season as this is the most boring time of the year for me. It is pretty obvious that this is the off season and a lot of preparations going on in practices leading up to the padded sessions.

I remember those days. I had to buy the Dolphin Digest to get any news on the Fins, and that was old news compared to the immediate news we get now on the internet. And there was a lot of fluff in that magazine, too.

What made things bearable in those days is that you knew you had Don Shula and he hated to lose. You knew that he was going to improve his team to get back to the Super Bowl. That's why I was surprised that he participated in this video clip during the Super Bowl.

Heck, I may as well shut the forum down after the Super Bowl game and reopen it up during training camp when the pads come on.

I think most of the fans here understand that the pads are not on. What they also understand is that the good reports coming out of camp are from people who saw these same players perform last year when the pads were not on. They are seeing improvement.

Let's just go with some cautious optimism here.

Thanks BDave. I appreciate your addressing this topic as it seems to come up with some regularity. I like cautious optimism it makes being a fan a little more fun, at least for me.

Heck, I may as well shut the forum down after the Super Bowl game and reopen it up during training camp when the pads come on.

When it comes to how players are looking. Correct. What happens in shorts is quickly forgotten when the pads come on. Shorts reports are useless. No one is being hit & the fear of being hit is not there.

Big Dave wrote:

I think most of the fans here understand that the pads are not on. What they also understand is that the good reports coming out of camp are from people who saw these same players perform last year when the pads were not on. They are seeing improvement.

Why does paying attention to reports have to do with posting? The funny thing is we go through this every year and every year you guys fail to recall the previous yrs BS short reports about how good a player is performing while not being in pads.

Why does paying attention to reports have to do with posting? The funny thing is we go through this every year and every year you guys fail to recall the previous yrs BS short reports about how good a player is performing while not being in pads.

Doesnt really bother me, as I said I enjoy reading them and discussing them. Your the one who seems upset over all of it, not sure why, its just some people chatting about OTA's in a discussion forum..

What I find humoring is how OTA's are pointless from some fans viewpoint, yet 32 teams do them year in and year out....

Doesnt really bother me, as I said I enjoy reading them and discussing them. Your the one who seems upset over all of it, not sure why, its just some people chatting about OTA's in a discussion forum..

More of eye rolling. It would be nice if what happens in shorts translates to pads, but rarely is the time it does. Without the fear of being hit, its just men running around catching a football & learning their routes.

10acjed wrote:

What I find humoring is how OTA's are pointless from some fans viewpoint, yet 32 teams do them year in and year out....

Pointless? Who has ever called them pointless? There is value in them, just not how a player is looking. They are great in other areas, just not in how a player looks.

Look at the headline of this thread. What two words are in there? "May be" Hartline maybe better? He could be worse than he was last year. Frankly IMO he "had better be" after getting that deal with only 1 TD each year over the last 3 years and the fact 9 games last year he posted under 70 Yds.

Look at the headline of this thread. What two words are in there? "May be" Hartline maybe better? He could be worse than he was last year. Frankly IMO he "had better be" after getting that deal with only 1 TD each year over the last 3 years and the fact 9 games last year he posted under 70 Yds.

Exactly what I saw. He was asked a question by a reader of his column, he answered it the best he could based on what he has seen so far. He did not say anything for certain, just made an observation of what could be.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In a pint-sized bathroom on a two-and-a-half hour flight from Ohio to Florida in early June, Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brian Hartline just wanted to be alone in his misery.

The pain was excruciating, like nothing he'd ever felt, and no timeout would help him here. So he paced between his aisle seat and the bathroom, back and forth, back and forth, as the minutes slogged along like a slow-motion replay.

"My stomach was hurting so bad that I couldn't sit in my seat," said Hartline, detailing his offseason with NFL.com for the first time publicly. "I'd put the tray down on the seat in front of me to bury my head, but I kept ending up in that bathroom just so I could sit by myself."

Maybe that's the best place to call the beginning of these unlikeliest of months, up in the sky, locked in a bathroom, where Hartline believed he was experiencing the worst case of constipation this world has ever felt. ...

One sleepless night after Hartline's painful flight June 10, he crawled to the elevator of his condo building, managed his way to his car and drove to Broward General Hospital, where he'd have his appendix, complicated by gangrene, removed immediately. He wouldn't leave for 12 days. And he'd lose 25 pounds in the process. ...

"I don't want to act like I don't have confidence in myself -- and I don't want to get caught up in the idea that this production is anything crazy -- but from what I went through, there was a point I didn't know if I'd even play in the first game."

You see, Hartline didn't just have his appendix removed four months before the start of a contract year. He also suffered a batch of complications that completely shut down his digestive system. He also suffered a calf injury on the first day of training camp, a result of improper healing of a previous injury because of his bed-ridden hospital stay. It caused him to miss the entire preseason.

"The poor guy just couldn't get out of his own way," coach Joe Philbin said. "You felt bad for him. The (first-year) coaching staff didn't have a lot of history with him, and we didn't know him yet, but you feel for guys who can't get over the hump.

"There was nothing he could do. When you go see a kid in the hospital, and he has to stay there for 12 days, it's not like he's faking it."

Indeed, Philbin was among those who visited Hartline in the hospital in June -- until Hartline became so frail and so uncomfortable that he prohibited visitors altogether.

***

The pain led to medicine. The medicine led to complications. And complications resulted in ileus, a complete blockage of Hartline's intestines. For 12 days, Hartline couldn't eat as much as a Popsicle without throwing up.

"It was to the point where my stomach wasn't even processing my bile, so I had to put a tube down my throat," Hartline said. "Every 24 hours, I was emptying 600 CCs of bile from my stomach (the equivalent of a 20 oz. bottle of soda)."

Are you getting this? Less than four months ago, the NFL's leading wide receiver -- who few had on their radar nationally at all -- was 25 pounds lighter, and his offseason training activities consisted of nothing more than walking the length of the hospital's hallway in scrubs while attached to a pole with an IV drip.

"So the doctor says, 'Some people, they're in here for a day or two, if that. Then, you have people who die from this. But you're somewhere in the middle.' I look at the doctor and say, 'Wait, doc, are you telling me I have a 50 percent chance of dying?" ...

Three weeks into training camp, when Hartline still couldn't get his calf healthy enough to get on the field, ...

"A week before the season started, my toe nails were falling off, which happens to guys a week into training camp," Hartline said. "I had 'camp legs,' and the season was about to start. I'm only now just really getting my legs under me."

Two months ago, shortly before he pulled his calf muscle on the first day of camp, Hartline didn't even have the endurance to run a full lap around a football field because of his medical situation. ...

Considering how the off - season went I think he a good beginning of the season.

Not sure Hartline is going for 1000+ yards again, but he should be more productive with the opportunities he does get. Hartline will never be a high TD guy, but he should have a much more productive season from that standpoint, one would imagine.

Not only does he have more help around him and a better QB than last year, he's going to have a healthy training camp. Week 1 practice being your first time on the field since January 1st and having the type of season he did is pretty miraculous.